Carbon Creek's Cold Case
by Lucillia
Summary: Mestral stayed on Earth as you well know. Now it's up to Lily Rush and Scotty Valens to figure out how he ended up dead in a seedy Philadelphia motel in July 1974. Crossover with Cold Case.
1. Mestral's Departure

July 7, 1974:

It was less than two days after Maggie's funeral when he packed up his things from their apartment over the bar and left. He couldn't deal with being here anymore. His step-son Jack stared coldly after him as he walked out the door. There was nothing left for him here. Without Maggie, the home they had once shared seemed cold and empty. Maggie had been the only reason he had returned to this place called Carbon Creek and settled down. The seemingly innocent world that he had crash landed on had changed into something cold and unrecognizable. The one person who had kept it warm had gone away forever. Cancer had taken her life far too soon, and there had been nothing he could do about it.

Mestral walked a ways out onto the nearby highway and began his trip as he had the one he had taken nearly two decades earlier. He hitchhiked. An aging VW bus with a fading psychadelic paint-job pulled over. He got in.

The next morning, his cold and lifeless body was found in a room in a seedy motel in a bad part of Philadelphia. The city of "Brotherly Love" had no love for him.

The case was investigated by members of Philadelphia's finest as a normal homicide despite the fact that the being on the cold tile floor wasn't human. Oddly enough, no mention of the fact that all of the blood at the crime scene was green or the unusual findings at the autopsy found their way to the press.

With no leads, the case went cold pretty quickly, and remained that way for over thirty years.


	2. Valens Gets a Case

August 10, 2007:

A distinguished older gentleman in a blue pullover sweater and beige slacks walks into the department where Lily Rush and Scotty Valens work. The room he finds himself in, is mostly a large space filled with cluttered desks and file cabinets. People rush about it doing various tasks. Off to one side is an area partitioned off in alluminum and glass with venetian blinds for privacy. For the briefest second you see a brown haired man who is just entering middle age and wearing a sombre suit standing where the old man stood. It is the same man, Jack, who had angrily watched his step-father walk out of his life before his mother was even cold in the ground. The old man passed by the cluttered desk of Nick Vera who had his nose in the popular alternate history book about Kahn Noonian Singh that had recently taken the world by storm. The sandwich on the desk in front of him sat completely ignored save the bite taken out of one of the corners. The old man walked over to the desk where Scotty Valens was busily working on a file in front of him. The man stood there and waited for him to finish.

Scotty looked up at the man who had been seemingly reluctant to interrupt him and nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise. Standing before him was one of his childhood heroes from the days when he had wanted to be an astronaut, one of NASA's top scientists, and the inventor of the first-generation of sleeper ships, Jack Nix.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Scotty asked trying to hide his shock at being next to someone as famous and important as the man in front of him.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure." The man said as he took the seat that was hastily offered to him. "You see, my step-father Mestral left right after my mother's funeral on July 7, 1974. Later that evening, he called me from Philadelphia and I hung up on him before he could say what he was calling about. That was the last time I ever heard from him. Later I sent out several private investigators to try and find him, and they all came up with nothing. This has led me to believe that he may have never left Philadelphia as he had planned to, and that something may have happened to him. I have a picture of him from shortly before he left."

"I'll do what I can." Scotty said as he took the picture and the man's contact information. "If I find something, I'll call you."

"Thank you." Jack said as he got up to leave.

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"Tell me again, why we're looking at John Does from the Seventies?" Vera asked as he pulled yet another crime scene photograph from a box. He was still somewhat irritated about his break being interrupted. He rarely got a chance to read something that wasn't work related, and the book had been fascinating. Who knew that that crackpot terrorist Singh could've actually taken over the world if he had followed his original plans for domination. Hijakaing that experimental sleeper ship and taking off for parts unknown was the best thing that lunatic could've done for mankind even though it had set the space program back more than a decade.

"Do you have any idea who the man walked in here earlier was?" Scotty asked as he grabbed another box from the shelf. He was still a little awestruck by the fact that one of his childhood heroes had actually talked to him. He fondly recalled the days when he wanted to be an astronaut. When he was a child, he had eagerly read everything he could get his hands on about NASA and the space program. Like most childhood dreams though, his had eventually faded and he had found a job he wouldn't trade for the world.

"Some old guy, I don't know." Vera replied opening the fourth box from '75. He was supposed to be on break. Sorting through old case files for something that might not be there was not how he wanted to spend it.

"That guy has been one of NASA's top scientists since the early 70s. He won a Nobel Prize for his work on the first generation of sleeper ships. He'd been a hero of mine when I was a kid. His step-dad's been missing for thirty years, and I want to go through all of these boxes and be able to tell him that he isn't in one of them." Scotty Valens said as he opened a box from the July of 1974 and began sifting through its contents looking for a picture.

Scotty's face fell as he looked at the photo in the file. It was Mestral.


	3. Green Oddity

As Scotty Valens, Lily Rush, Will Jeffries, Nick Vera and John Stillman sorted through the box that contained all of the information the Philadelphia Police had on the murder of Mestral and its subsequent investigation (what little there was of it) more questions were raised than answers. One question that was on everyone's mind was: "Why in the hell was all of the blood in the crime scene photos green?"

"Hey, get a load of this autopsy report." Scotty said shortly after digging it out of the box "His heart was where his liver's supposed to be."

"Is this supposed to be some kind of a joke?" Vera asked leafing through the report that Scotty handed him.

"That's what I intend to find out." Rush said as she leafed through the case notes. "Perhaps we should talk to the detective that was working the case back in 74, some guy by the name of Marcus."

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Retired Homicide Detective Walter Marcus was sitting at a table at his favorite dive with his back to the wall nursing a glass of scotch when Detectives Rush and Valens walked in. Rush took the seat across from him, Valens took a chair from the next table over and sat down next to her.

"What do you two want?" Marcus asked the couple who had disrupted his quiet drink.

"I'm Lily Rush from Homicide, and this it my partner Scotty Valens. Do you remember a case you were working on back in the July of 74?" Lily asked half expecting a confused look or some laughter and confirmation that the file had been some twisted joke. Half hoping that it was, because the other option was investigating someone's murder. Someone that probably wasn't human, but someone nonetheless.

"You're asking about the green guy, aren't you?" Marcus said, his voice slightly shaky. "I could never forget him if I tried. The other guys wanted to drop it, put it down as a robbery gone bad and lose the file somewhere, but I wondered how his family would react if they came to Earth and found out that we didn't do jack shit to find out who killed him. I didn't like any of the answers I came up with. I ended up working the case alone in whatever spare time I could find. A homicide is a homicide no matter who the victim was."

"You're not going to believe this, but a member of his family came looking for him." Valens said.

Walter Marcus looked down at his drink, suddenly picked the glass up and drained it in one gulp.

"I'll help you with anything you need." he said as soon as the glass was empty.

"I'd appreciate that. I'll contact you as soon as possible." Valens said.


	4. Interviewing John Cristopher

Detectives Scotty Valens and Lily Rush got back from the bar and swiftly informed their coworkers that the case was real, and that they would be working on it.

"So, do you think the guy was really an alien, or do you think it's some sort of weird birth defect?" Detective Vera asked as he dug the witness statements out of the box. "I read somewhere that there are some disorders that can turn your blood green."

"Honestly, it doesn't matter." Scotty said. "He was murdered, and it's our job to find out who did it."

A sudden whistle broke the brief silence that followed Scotty's statement.

"Wow, you won't believe all of the famous names in this report." Vera said holding up the witness statements. "There's a famous Science Fiction author, the guy who founded Chronowerx, and the father of the guy who's leading the mission to Titan."

"That's an odd combination." Detective Jefferies said taking the report from Vera and looking at it for himself. "It seems that the Science Fiction author, Roberta Lincoln, was the one who found the body. Do you think this was some kind of conspiracy?"

"I don't know. Why don't we re-interview the witnesses and find out." Rush said as she too read the witness list.

"We won't be able to interview Starling, he's been dead for eleven years." Scotty said as he began a search of the current whereabouts of the witnesses.

"We should start with Christopher since he's the only one left in town." Scotty said after briefly studying the preliminary results of his search.

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Detectives Rush and Valens sat in the well appointed living-room of the Christopher home. Seated across from them on the other side of the coffee table with its floral arrangement centerpiece is Clarice Cristopher. Her husband, the former Air Force Captain John Christopher was due back from running errands at any minute.

As Mrs. Christopher was offering her guests tea, a gray haired man in his mid-seventies walks into the room. There is a brief flash, and for a second the man is replaced by an unkempt man in his late thirties to early fourties wearing worn clothes that were a bit too large for him . The man settles down on the loveseat next to his wife.

"Clarice told me you were here about a homicide?" Mr. Cristopher says as soon as he is seated.

"In 1974 a man who has recently been identified as Mestral Vagus was murdered at a hotel. You were on the list of witnesses interviewed at the time. I was wondering if there was something you may have remembered since then. Something that might've slipped your mind at the time." Detective Valens said as he pulled out a notebook.

"I try not to remember that time if I could help it." Mr. Cristopher said "I had suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after the birth of my son. I ended up on the streets in April of that year after leaving the psychiatric Hospital that I had voluntarily commited myself to. I had been too afraid to go home, too afraid of what I would do to my wife and son. I had been having some pretty strange delusions at the time, but I eventually got treatment, and was able to return home."

It was at this point that Mr. Cristopher squeezed his wife's hand seeking reassurance and the strength to continue.

"Mike, the night manager of the motel used to let me stay in his office at night. I was there when the man you were talking about arrived...."

The scene suddenly shifts. It is now the office of the motel where Mestral spent his last night on Earth. Two men are splitting the cost for their room. John Cristopher is sitting in a corner watching them and the man that came in behind them. The men get their key and leave. Mestral walks up to the counter and gets the key to his room. On his way out of the office, he gives Mr. Cristopher five dollars and tells him to get something to eat. Outside, one of the local junkies who occasionally frequented the hotel starts to hassle him. Mestral grabs him by the shoulder, and suddenly the man slumps to the ground.

The scene shifts back to the living-room where the Cristophers, and Detectives Rush and Valens were seated.

"A few hours later, that blonde comes out of his room screaming bloody murder." Mr. Cristopher concluded.

"Do you have any idea who the guy who hassled Mestral was?" Scotty asked.

"Don't really know, he was called T.J. or something like that." Mr. Cristopher replied.

"Thanks for your time. If you remember anything else, please don't hesitate to contact us." Lily said as she and Scotty got up to leave.


	5. Interviewing Roberta Lincoln

When Detectives Rush and Valens got back to the station they had Detective Vera look for the junkie that Christopher had told them about. They then prepared themselves for the drive to Pittsburgh to interview the woman who had found the body, Roberta Lincoln.

Roberta Lincoln answered the door to her home in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. For the briefest instant, the grey haired older woman in an open pink cardigan, white blouse and pink skirt was replaced by a blonde haired woman in her early thirties wearing tight jeans and a long, loose sleeved white blouse.

"Can you come back later, I'm in the middle of writing my latest novel." The woman said to the couple on the doorstep as she began to close the door.

"I'm Detective Rush and this is Detective Valens, we're from Philadelphia Homicide. We would like to talk to you about a murder that took place in '74." Detective Lily Rush said quickly thrusting her badge in the woman's face before the door completely shut.

"Why didn't you say so earlier? Come on in." Roberta said as she opened the door wide and ushered the pair of detectives into the living-room.

"According to the report, you were the one to find the body." Detective Scotty Valens began as he sat down on an avocado green couch staring at what looked to be an interior decorator's worst nightmare. Nothing in the room matched, and no two pieces of furniture appeared to even be from the same decade.

"Yes. It was quite awful. There was blood everywhere. When I first saw him, I thought he was Mr. Spock." Roberta said as she seated herself in a rather well used and comfortable looking armchair.

"Mr. Spock?" Valens asked as he got his notebook out.

"An acquaintance of Gary and I." Roberta replied.

"If I may ask, what were you doing in that part of Philadelphia?" Rush asked from her spot on a red loveseat to Ms. Lincoln's left.

"Gary asked me to go to that motel to pick someone up and bring him back to New York for him. When I got to his room, there was no answer..."

Suddenly the scene changes and there is a blonde woman in her early thirties wearing a loose blouse and jeans knocking on a green door with peeling paint and plastic numbers.

"Hello? Hello? Anyone there? It's Roberta, Gary Seven said that I was supposed to pick you up...." The knocking woman says as the door opens that the door is open, the woman opens it some more and sticks her head inside.

The room is pretty much a standard motel room. There is a bed with a puke green cover, a nightstand with an ashtray and a t.v. stand. The walls had at one time been white, but years of smokers inhabiting the room had turned them an odd yellowish color. One of the walls has a crack in it that goes all of the way up to the ceiling. The door to the bathroom is open, and inside is a dark haired man lying facedown on the floor in a largish green puddle.

The woman enters the room and crosses over to the bathroom. She turns the body over. Seconds later, she runs from the room screaming for help...

Suddenly the scene returns to the present day. It is now back in Roberta Lincoln's living-room with Scotty Valens, Lily Rush, and Roberta Lincoln herself.

"Did you know who he was, or why this Gary person wanted to see him?" Scotty asked from the couch in front of Ms. Lincoln.

"As I told the first officer, I don't know what his name was. But I do know why Gary wanted to see him. Gary was going to help him get home." Roberta replied as she set the mug down.


	6. Interviewing Alexander Clay

"What do you think she meant when she said that this Gary guy was going to send him home?" Valens asked Rush as they headed to the car after interviewing Ms. Lincoln.

"I don't know." Lily said grabbing her ringing cell phone and answering it. "Vera just called. He's going to New York to interview one of the guys on the witness list. A former business partner of Henry Starling, the founder of Chronowerx, a man named Alexander Clay. He also found our "T.J." He died in '78 of a drug overdose. "

"Damn" Valens said as he slammed his car door shut behind him upon getting inside.

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Detectives Vera and Jefferies are standing in the living-room of a relatively nice apartment in Queens. On the walls are dozens of pictures of family members, and a couple of bookcases filled with as many books as they could fit. In front of them are the books that didn't. The furniture consists of an old brown couch in front of a coffee table and a matching armchair that faced the television. Standing in front of the detectives is a man in his mid sixties wearing striped pajamas a housecoat and slippers. For the briefest instant, he is replaced by a brown haired man in his early thirties wearing casual slacks and a striped button-up short-sleeved shirt.

"I don't get too many visitors." The man said as he made a gesture that encompassed his attire, the stacked books and the mess of paper on the coffee table. "Why don't you guys sit down."

"Would you mind telling us what you were doing at the motel when the police arrived?" Vera asked as he sat down on the couch.

"We were staying there, Henry and I. This was back in the early days of Chronowerx, when we were struggling to get funding. It didn't take off until the Eighties you know, and I had sold my share of the company long before then. That is something I've regretted doing every day. On that day in '74, Starling and I had gone to Philadelphia to speak with a potential investor, and we picked that Mestral guy up on the way..."

The scene suddenly changes, now it's a tree lined highway. Standing at the side of the road is a dark haired man of indeterminate age wearing a red flannel shirt with a white t-shirt underneath, jeans, heavy workboots and a red baseball cap. At his feet is a large green duffelbag that looked like it had come from an army surplus store. An aging VW Bus with a fading psychedelic paint-job pulls up next to him. Inside is Henry Starling and his business partner, Alexander Clay.

"Need a lift?" Starling asks from the driver's seat.

"It would be appreciated." The dark haired man, Mestral, said grabbing his bag, opening the van's side door, and getting in.

"Where are you going?" Clay asks turning in the passenger seat to face the dark haired man.

"Philadelphia." Mestral replies.

"We're going there too." Starling says as he gets the van back on the road and headed towards the aforementioned city.

The scene changes again. It is around sunset. The VW Bus pulls into the parking lot of a seedy looking motel in what clearly isn't the best part of town.

"Well, here we are." Starling says as he pulls into a space in front of the office. "You'll have to get your own room."

With that, everyone leaves the van and heads into the office where they get their rooms for the night.

The scene changes again, and it is back in the living-room of the apartment. Clay is sitting in the armchair and Vera and Jefferies are on the couch.

"That was the last time I saw him. A few hours later, a blonde haired lady came out of his room screaming her head off." Clay said as he leaned back in his chair.

"Thanks for your time Mr. Clay. We'll get back to you if we need anything else." Jefferies said as he and Vera got up to leave.

"By all means, do so." Clay said as he led Vera and Jefferies to the door. "As I said, I don't get very much company, and more would always be appreciated."


	7. A Cold Case Heats Up

Detective Valens sat in front of his computer occasionally muttering under his breath, the words "Damn Chronowerx piece of crap, most advanced computers in the world my ass." were heard on more than one occasion. After four hours and six reboots, he had hit a dead end.

"Something wrong Scotty?" Detective Rush asked, leaning over his shoulder.

"I ran into a dead end with Gary Seven. He just up and vanishes sometime in the mid-nineties. Back in '74 he was running some sort of research business with Roberta Lincoln as his partner." Valens said. "I haven't found a "Mr. Spock" who came close enough to the vic's description to be mistaken for him either."

"Hopefully Vera and Jefferies will have gotten something from their trip to New York." Rush said. "I'm going to go home and get a fresh start on this in the morning."

"Good Idea."

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The next morning comes. The sun shines through the windows reflecting off the glass of their Captain's "office" and the pristine white walls of their workspace giving the room an otherworldly feel. Detectives Rush Valens Jefferies and Vera notice none of this.

Jefferies is at his desk nursing a large coffee while going over his interview notes from the previous day. Clay had been rather helpful, in fact almost too helpful.

Rush was writing a report by hand since her computer had chosen to stop working. She completely ignored the doughnut that Valens had set at her left elbow.

Valens was once more sorting through the evidence, completely ignoring the yelling man being hauled out of interrogation by three officers.

Vera was going over one of the numerous Alien Conspiracy sites that littered the internet.

It seemed that the investigation had stalled. That was, at least until Vera clicked on one more site. A site about the so called "Carbon Creek Invasion". It seemed that someone knew all along that Mestral was dead.


	8. The Phone Call

After a long search, detectives Nick Vera and Will Jeffries found themselves at the apartment of the man who ran the "Carbon Creek Invasion" website. The nearly bald white-haired man who was fast approaching seventy who answers the door is briefly replaced by a balding red-head in his mid-thirties wearing jeans and a puke green hand knitted sweater.

Michael Wilson - currently retired - ran a couple of conspiracy websites from his small apartment in Fishtown. In 1957 he had been a soon to be high school drop-out and son of a woman who had her laundry stolen by aliens in Carbon Creek who would leave for the "Big City" where he thought he'd make his fortune. By 1974 he was a desk clerk at a no-tell motel in a bad part of town.

"May I help you gentlemen?" he asked.

"I'm Detective Vera and this is Detective Jeffries. We're investigating a homicide that occurred at the motel you were working at back in the July 1974. We were wondering if we could ask you some questions." Vera said.

"Over my dead body!" Wilson yelled before slamming the door in their faces.

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Three hours later Michael Wilson was sitting in Interrogation across from Detective Vera. In front of him was an open file folder containing the original crime scene photos as well as printouts of the pictures from his website that showed Mestral's corpse but didn't match the photos taken by the police.

"So, why'd you do it Mike?" Vera asked. "Did you think killing him would make you some sort of hero?"

"I didn't. I wouldn't. He saved my dad when the mine caved in back in '57. I just put the site up to warn people that aliens could be living amongst us preparing to invade without us noticing. Until I saw him again in '74 I thought he left with that plumber that looked like Moe and the chick that used to sweep Maggie's bar." Wilson replied.

The scene changes, and we're back at the motel registration area. Mestral is at the desk complaining to Mike the "Night Manager" that the phone in his room isn't working. Mike simply shrugs and points to the pay-phone in the corner before going back to his magazine. When Mestral's back is turned, Mike peers over the top of the magazine, watching Mestral closely.

Mestral pulls a piece of paper that looks as if it had been unfolded and refolded many times out of his wallet, drops a quarter into the phone with a sigh, and dials the number on the paper. After an intense discussion with the person on the other end of the line who apparently hadn't been happy about being called so late in the evening, he hangs up.

Moments after he hangs up, Clay walks in, notices him, and walks over.

"You look like you could use a drink." he says.

Mestral and Alexander Clay leave together, presumably to the nearest bar.

The scene shifts back to the stark gray interrogation room where the old motel desk clerk and Detective Vera are seated at a metal table.

"A few hours later, the blonde lady comes running out of his room screaming. When I went up there to see what was going on, I found him on the bathroom floor in a puddle of his own blood. I took the pictures because I figured that the government would make the body vanish, since they kept telling us that aliens didn't exist." Wilson said.


	9. The Bar

Alexander Clay had his son drive him down from New York when Detective Vera had called. Instead of the friendly interview he had been expecting, he found himself in the interrogation room that Michael Wilson had been seated in two days before.

Detective Lily Rush watched Clay through the two-way mirror as he sat alone at the metal table under the bright florescent light. Detective Scotty Valens - who is standing next to Lily - decides that the suspect has waited long enough and enters the room seating himself in a metal chair to the man's right.

"You told Will and Nick that you hadn't seen Mestral since you checked in at the hotel. We talked to the hotel clerk and he says that you were the last person to be seen with him before he died." Scotty said "We did some digging and found out that the reason you and Starling were staying at that hotel in the first place was because you were completely broke. According to Mestral's step-son, he was carrying a couple thousand dollars on him. So what was the plan? Were you and Starling going to get him drunk then rob him?"

"No!" Clay said, backing away from Detective Valens who had been leaning towards him as he spoke.

"What happened? Did he put up a fight?" Scotty asked.

"No, it wasn't anything like that. I never hurt him. I just wanted to go out to get a drink and was too afraid to go alone. Henry didn't want to come along. Less than thirty minutes after we got back from the bar, he was dead."

The scene changes. We now see the inside of the same bar that the retired Detective Marcus was drinking at more than thirty years later. It is in only slightly better condition than it was when Marcus frequented it. Seated towards the middle of the bar are Mestral and Alexander Clay.

"If this investor falls through, Chronowerx is going to go belly-up before it even gets a proper start." Clay said. "I just wish that Starling would quit telling potential investors that he got his ideas by reverse engineering technology from a spaceship from the future. The last five investors laughed in our faces before telling us not to let the door hit us on the way out."

Mestral just looks at him over his drink with a raised eyebrow.

"So what brings you to the City of Brotherly Love?" Clay asked.

"My wife died, and I couldn't stay in Carbon Creek anymore." Mestral said. "I've decided to go back home."

"Wasn't Carbon Creek your home?" Clay asked.

"It was for a time. I'm going back to where I came from." Mestral replied.

Two hours later, Mestral is on the second floor landing of the hotel dragging a drunken Alexander Clay back to his room. His way is blocked by the homeless guy who had been in the registration office, the former Air Force Captain Christopher.

"I know what you are." Christopher says.

"If you'll excuse me, I need to get Mr. Clay back to his room." Mestral says as he pushes past the man.

"You won't get away with it!" Christopher yells at Mestral's back.

About a half-hour later, when Alexander Clay - who had just dozed off - woke to Roberta Lincoln's horrified screams, he found a large wad of cash sitting on the nightstand next to his bed.

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Being unable to hold him any longer due to lack of evidence, Clay is released. Detectives Rush and Valens watch as he leaves with his son.

"If what Clay said was true..." Rush begins.

"We need to re-interview Christopher." Valens says.


	10. Case Closed

The former Air Force Captain John Christopher is seated at the table in interrogation looking much smaller than the lively man that had been interviewed weeks before. He looked as if he was trying to curl himself into a ball and not quite managing to. Based on his haggard appearance a person would guess that he hadn't slept in quite a long time.

Detective Lily Rush entered the interrogation room wondering if playing the sympathy card would be better than trying to break the suspect in front of her.

"I know why you're here. I knew this day would be coming since you arrived at my home." Christopher said sadly.

"Why'd you do it?" Rush asked.

"The dreams started when I learned that my wife was pregnant. I started to believe that I had been kidnapped by a bunch aliens whose leader - who was named Spock - claimed to be from a couple hundred years in the future. I believed that this Spock had told me he was letting me go because I had not yet fathered Shaun, and that he had erased my memory of the encounter and put me in an exact replica of my plane before flying away. By the time my son was born, I believed that the child was part of an alien conspiracy. The last straw for my wife was when she found me with a knife about to cut Shaun open to prove he was an alien." Christopher said.

"My wife moved back to Nebraska with her mother. I decided to get help. I checked myself into a local psychiatric hospital hoping to get treatment. The place turned out to be more of a storage facility for the mentally ill than anything. The medications didn't help and the "Group Therapy" was a joke. I ended up checking myself out. Since I had no money and nowhere to go, I ended up on the street. When I saw Mr. Vagus, I was convinced he was an alien and that he was part of some plot that involved my son." Christopher continued.

The scene changes and we find ourselves back at the motel. Mestral is heading back to his room, passing Christopher once more along the way. Christopher follows him.

"I know what you are!" Christopher yells.

Mestral pauses, then decides to ignore Christopher and continue toward his room. When he reaches his room, Christopher barges in after him.

"If you need a place to sleep, you can have the bed for the rest of the night. I won't be needing it soon." Mestral said, looking at his watch before heading into the bathroom.

Christopher barges into the bathroom after him holding the knife he carried for his own protection.

"I won't let you! You and Spock can't have my Shaun!" Christopher yells as he stabs Mestral - who was in the process of refastening his pants - in the gut. The first stab was fatal. The knife had gone through a vital organ that would have been in a different spot on a human.

After a couple of minutes, Christopher begins to realize that Mestral is dead. He washes Mestral's blood off in the bathroom sink and leaves the room, taking the wallet on the nightstand on his way out.

The scene shifts and John Christopher is led out of the interrogation room in handcuffs. As he is led toward his cell, he is briefly replaced by the man he had been before his life began to spiral out of control, a brown haired blue-eyed man in his thirties wearing the uniform of a fighter pilot.

The scene shifts once more to a ship orbiting Titan. The first message it receives causes the Mission Commander Shaun Christopher to start crying for the first time in years.

The scene shifts once again and Detectives Rush, Valens, Vera and Jefferies, as well as Stillman, the retired detective Walter Marcus and Mestral's step-son Jack are standing nearby as Mestral's body is exhumed from the grave that had been donated by members of the church Detective Marcus attended.

Lily Rush and Scotty Valens both look up at the same time, and see Mestral's ghost watching them for a moment before he vanishes.


	11. Epilogue: A box for Spock

Captain Archer went to his quarters after the dinner and story session with T'Pol wondering why the name Mestral seemed so familiar to him....

When Captain John Archer got back to Earth he decided to spend his leave organizing the storage shed where he kept most of his belongings when he went into space.

At the back of the shed, there was a once-white corrugated cardboard box that was one of many he had inherited from his Grandma Valens. This one however, had been more carefully preserved than the others. Archer hadn't touched it since he had dumped it in storage along with the others after her funeral.

During World War III, almost all electronic data was destroyed by EMP blasts. Afterwards, history had to be pieced back together by studying all the books and caches of paper records that had been kept by those who had lovingly preserved them until the madness ended and society began to rebuild itself with help from the stars. Little caches of paper like this box and the others along with it had been passed through several generations of his family.

Archer carefully picked up the one and a half century old box that had sat collecting dust in his storage space for years. He decided to give it and the others to the local historical society the first chance he got. They would be able to preserve it better than he. Before giving it away though, he decided to have a look inside. Once he got a look at it's contents, all thoughts of donating it to the historical society fled his mind. He carefully placed the box back in its prior location and left sorting the shed for some other day.

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Spock wondered why someone like T'Pol would send him a package, especially one as large as the one that had been delivered to the Enterprise earlier that day. Spock opened the note that had come with the package and began to read.

Dear Spock,

I shudder to think what the results of one of your substandard mind-melds would be on a Vulcan.

T'Pol

Spock set the note down on the desk beside the package with confusion. Why would someone send such a note with a gift? Slightly apprehensive, Spock opened the package.

The contents of the package consisted of a fragile and obviously very old cardboard box from Earth that had been carefully preserved. Spock turned it in every direction wondering why T'Pol would send him such a thing. On one of the narrower ends of the box was writing that had once been black, but had faded to brown over time. It consisted of a series of numbers, an old Earth calendar date, and an area that had the name John Doe crossed out and replaced with the words Mestral Vagus.

The contents of the box consisted of a couple hundred individually wrapped pieces of paper in carefully preserved paper folders. Spock began to study these papers hoping to gain some insight into the reason for the note, and why it had been sent along with the box.

Hours later Spock found himself unable to sleep because of the ancient box - which had once borne a lid with the word Closed on it - that sat there silently rebuking him.

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Author's Note: I decided to slightly alter Tomorrow Is Yesterday. Instead of just beaming Captain Christopher back to his plane and hoping that the timeline would be erased and Christopher would know nothing, Spock decided to take out some extra insurance and did a mind-meld with Christopher to erase his memories of his time aboard the Enterprise. As Christopher had been an unwilling participant, the mind-meld hadn't taken properly causing serious psychological damage.


End file.
